Gwendolyn Fortson-Waring routinely sees prostitutes and drug dealers loitering in the lanes of her Savannah neighborhood.

Each time, she telephones her neighborhood crime prevention officer, Cpl. Tony Lopez.

"I have his cell phone number. He's always responsive," the Metropolitan neighborhood association president said. "If he can't do it, he will call someone who can - or tell you who to call."

In the past two years, Fortson-Waring said she has seen more police in her neighborhood, but the officers are different. She doesn't know her neighborhood beat officer, and he doesn't come to the Metropolitan Community Organization meetings.

"We've had trouble in certain areas. We see the officers quite often, but we need more," she said. "The only one I know is Tony Lopez."

Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Chief Michael Berkow would like every officer to be like Lopez.

That's why the new chief is restructuring the force to place a greater emphasis on the six precincts. After three weeks on the job, Berkow is implementing a new way of thinking about crime-fighting, based on a strategy called "geographic policing." And he is working to address long-standing problems.

"We are trying to create a sense of ownership with turf," he said. "It's about problem-solving and partnerships."

Those partnerships are difficult to create if there aren't enough officers on the street. Patrol officers routinely are being moved around to cover shortages now, Berkow said.

"We have to maximize every single body we have available to us," he said. "Our most valuable asset is people."

Vacancy figures unknown

Last week, the new chief outlined a detailed restructuring strategy for 2007. Berkow is calling for a change in the department's philosophy that will affect everything from the shifts officers work to where police pump their gasoline to fill their cruiser tanks.

Much of Berkow's ideas for restructuring are similar to the recommendations outlined last year in the Mayor's Public Safety Task Force.

The report called for the disbanding of specialized units to fill more than 60 vacancies in the patrol division.

Berkow recently disbanded the Expanded Patrol Operation and sent those officers back to the precincts. Still, the precincts are short 23 officers, the chief said.

Vacancy figures for the rest of the department were not available.

"I can't answer that because I don't trust the numbers. The numbers are counted differently, depending on who you ask," he said. "I want to know where everybody is and make sure it equals the number of paychecks we're cutting each week."

Berkow said he cannot move forward with his restructuring plans until he receives accurate staffing numbers - something he requested more than a week ago.

This has been a problem plaguing the police department for more than a year. Differences in vacancy numbers contributed to former Chief Dan Flynn's departure.

The Savannah Morning News requested vacancy data from the police department on Wednesday. Only the patrol division numbers were available Friday. The rest will be available this week, police said.

Last December, the department was down 71 officers.

In January, the community rallied for a bigger police presence following the shooting death of Jennifer Ross, 19, a Mercer University student home on Christmas break last year.

Interim Police Chief Willie Lovett, now the assistant chief, responded by assigning 16 Chatham County sheriff's deputies to city patrols and by creating EXPO, the Expanded Patrol Operation.

"It's a patrol unit, nothing magical," Lovett said in May. "But the good thing about EXPO is we're able to address crime in any place in Chatham County at any time."

Over the next six months, the police department implemented an aggressive recruiting plan and a strategic crime-fighting strategy.

Those plans worked, police said.

In July, Lovett announced all of the department's vacancies were filled. Crime also had dipped by more than 15 percent, according to the department, which was Lovett's goal for 2006.

Lovett attributed that decrease in part to EXPO, a group of 12 to 20 officers at any one time who targeted crime hot spots with saturation patrols.

In September, the interim chief recognized those officers with a unit citation award.

Berkow admits EXPO made strides in Savannah, but he said the unit was only part of a short-term strategy. It accomplished its goals.

"This department has operated on a philosophy of 'fill a specialized squad, and leave vacancies in patrol.' Every time a specialty squad is created, it never goes away," he said. "Now we're putting the resources back in patrol."

The precincts are still struggling with shortages on the street. This time, the police department needs a more concreted strategy, Berkow said.

His plan calls for moving to geographic policing. The strategy is related to community policing, but it is more focused.

"Community policing is a philosophy," he said. "Geographic policing is a strategy and a tactic."

Community policing is centered on problem-solving and partnerships. Geographic policing pairs officers with residents to solve those problems, Berkow said.

"It's about the same officers, working the same areas on a routine basis," he said. "It's about rapid response. If there is a pattern or a problem, we'll move people to address it."

Previously, EXPO and other officers were moved around the city to target problem areas. Under the new plan, there will be enough officers in the precincts so they can stay in their own neighborhoods when problems arise.

"My goal is to get enough resources into the precincts, so they have enough resources to identify patterns and spikes - and respond," Berkow said.

The strategy works in some communities, but others have struggled because it forces officers to be moved from their beats to address problems, said Gilbert Moore, spokesman for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services within the U.S. Department of Justice.

"It's about officers working in hot spots," he said. "The public responds very well to community policing. There's a sense of comfort it generates. When you see these shifts, many times the public does not respond well. It will take time for the community to get used to it."

A paid consultant is scheduled to visit the department next week to teach several officers how to deploy manpower.

"The problem right now: We are deploying the same number of officers on all three shifts without regard to demand, or crime problems," Berkow said.

The consultant, Peter Bellmio, is expected to show SCMPD how to analyze crime statistics and the public's calls for service. He then will show ranking officers how to use that information to adjust schedules and beats.

Four years ago, Bellmio helped the Irvine (Calif.) Police Department create a precinct system. Berkow was the chief in Irvine.

Berkow hopes to take Bellmio's recommendations and reorganize SCMPD's six precincts. His goal is to keep officers in their neighborhood beats.

But some adjustments might have to be made to address crime spikes, Berkow said.

Some officers could get new schedules. The department's three-shift system is outdated and does not follow crime trends, he said.

"It will improve the quality of life for neighborhoods and officers," Berkow said. "I'm a very nuts and bolts, hands-on guy. I'm about systems. I'm looking at systems and how to deploy and maximize resources."

Morale problems

Berkow believes his officers have the resources and the dedication needed to do their jobs. They just need more focus.

He plans to engage officers more by addressing the heart of a persistent morale problem: the merger.

Despite being a unified department for more than three years, city and county officers still have disparate pensions, health plans and firearms. Some even have different salaries for similar jobs.

"There's still divisions between the city and county," he said. "These are the kind of day-to-day issues that need to be corrected. We need to remove the obvious irritants to both sides."

Last week, the chief ordered officers to remove all signs of the former Savannah Police and Chatham County Police departments. He started by having the 1953 SPD patrol car towed from in front of the Oglethorpe Street police barracks. The order includes everything from a former SPD podium at Central Precinct to the department's core values, which were city values adopted by the new agency.

The plan is to create a history for the merged department. Berkow is the first "true" SCMPD chief, because both former chiefs hailed from the city department.

"We need to remove those vestiges of the past that are hindering us and move forward as the Metro Police Department," he said.

He also is trying to increase communication within the ranks.

"We've been reasonably successful in solving crimes," he said. "The problem is a disconnect between patrol and detectives."

He's pushing for a more integrated approach by forcing precinct commanders to be accountable for crimes in their neighborhoods - something also cited in the public safety task force report.

"I'm a big believer of getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus," Berkow said. "But the most important thing is getting the right people in the right seats."

At weekly meetings, the commanders are required to not only list crimes and trends in their areas, but also to detail strategies to tackle those problems.

That forces various units within the department to talk, Berkow said.

The chief will move detectives into the precincts next year.

Decentralized investigations are one of the recommendations outlined in the Police Executive Research Forum audit. Berkow said he will review the $158,000 audit, which is scheduled to be complete in about 30 days, before making the move.

'A dramatic difference'

The move to geographic policing is just the beginning.

The chief also plans to revamp the recruiting, hiring and training systems for police officers.

"I'm concerned with who we are hiring, and are we hiring the best? I'm very uncomfortable about our background investigations," he said. "I'd rather run with vacancies than hire bad people."

Berkow also is creating a unit to handle special events such as the St. Patrick's Day parade. He's talking with area chiefs to improve dispatch and call response times, along with other glitches in the communications system.

Berkow said these are just some of the problems he's seen since he arrived Nov. 13. He is still learning the department and the community, something that will take more than three weeks. His initial assessment will take at least 60 to 90 days.

But first, the new chief must gather the information he needs - starting with how many officers work for his department.

"I'm still digging in every corner of the building to find out where everybody is," he said. "When we get the deployment and staffing issues worked out, I think the community will overnight see a dramatic difference."